Champions League final: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on the goal in 1999 which made him a hero

"Thanks for giving me the best night of my life; it was better than my wedding night." It is the phrase that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer knows off by heart. They are the words he most usually hears - the bit about the wedding is probably optional - whenever he encounters a Manchester United fan.

When these supporters talk about "the best night of my life", they really mean the best three minutes. Even Solskjaer has never watched the match in full. "I have seen the last 15 minutes once," he smiles - a quarter of an hour was the length of time he was on the pitch at the Nou Camp.

The day of the 1999 European Cup final ran slowly. Solskjaer was rooming with Jaap Stam, who was snoring loudly, making a pre-match sleep an impossibility. He phoned his best friend, a nurse in Trondheim, who said he would be unable to watch the last half-hour because he was working nights. "I made sure someone stepped in for him," he says, "because I told him: 'Something big is going to happen'."

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For much of the game, Manchester United were palpably outplayed by Bayern Munich, who had scored an early goal, and Solskjaer spent most of the final trying to catch Sir Alex Ferguson's eye in an attempt to get himself brought on as a substitute.

"At half-time, the manager had a little chat with Teddy Sheringham, to say that he was going to put him on," he recalls. "I was just in the background, hoping he comes over to me, but he didn't.

"In the second half, I was just waiting for him to give me the nod. I was warming up and warming up, waiting and waiting to catch his eye. I was thinking: 'Why don't you put me on?' because I had come on and scored against Liverpool and Nottingham Forest [four times in 18 minutes] and I had a premonition I was going to do something that night."

Ferguson once remarked that Solskjaer was such an effective substitute because he watched the game from the bench more intently than any other player he managed.

"I was very concentrated, yes, very focused on never sulking about not playing," he says. "My best ability was in just being ready when I was called upon. Then, I would be fit and my legs would be light. If you sulk and are on the bench and the gaffer calls you on, you are not ready because there's something going on in your head."

When Sheringham scored, the final was already into its three minutes of stoppage time. Ferguson's assistant, Steve McClaren, offered to warm up the remaining substitutes in preparation for extra time, only to be told: 'This game isn't finished yet'.

Ironically, as it turned out, Solskjaer was actually looking forward to extra-time: "Definitely. If you look at the clips, you'll see that everyone ran over to Teddy celebrating except me. I ran straight back to the halfway line because I was concentrating on playing half an hour extra in a Champions League final. This was something I was going to savour. But I ruined that. I had this run and I scored."

There were less than 90 seconds of stoppage time left when Sheringham scored. Then Solskjaer forced a corner, David Beckham took it, Sheringham nodded it on and a Norwegian big toe deflected it into the roof of Oliver Kahn's net from three yards. "Ninety-nine times out of 100, that would go into the hands of Kahn or on the head of the guy on the line." Sliding frantically in celebration, he damaged his medial ligaments.

Some believe it would trigger the knee injury that was to cost him 18 months out in 2004-05 and eventually finish his career, although Solskjaer says the two were not connected. "I cannot remember what I was thinking. I was just sliding, celebrating," he says. Afterwards, I couldn't understand the impact of it all. You are in the middle of it and you are so focused. You never think about the consequences it will have for so many people."